


on the wings of a nightingale (I'll Fly)

by Rebel_Scum1221



Category: Something Dark and Holy Series - Emily A. Duncan, wicked saints
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/M, Malazhiasz needs a hug, Nadya needs a hug, Nadya sees him sitting on the roof of the house behind hers, Soulmate Vibes, They all need a hug, They hit it off fast, casual mention of Star Wars and Ben Solo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-09
Updated: 2020-05-09
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:28:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,005
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24097327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rebel_Scum1221/pseuds/Rebel_Scum1221
Summary: The first time she saw him Nadya thought he was a thief, or murderer. Someone who had zero good intentions and was planning on doing something terrible to the Meleski’s house.The boy waved at her and Nadya closed her blinds faster than she knew possible.
Relationships: Malachiasz Czechowicz/Nadezhda Lapteva
Comments: 2
Kudos: 16





	on the wings of a nightingale (I'll Fly)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [KyloRing](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KyloRing/gifts).



> This is unbeta'd so I am 99% sure there will be a bunch of mistakes.

The first time she saw him Nadya thought he was a thief, or murderer. Someone who had zero good intentions and was planning on doing something terrible to the Meleski’s house. 

She was folding her laundry at an, admitted, unreasonable hour. The small rolls of pants littering her bed waiting for her to put them away. She had piled all fourteen pairs of pants into her arms before hobbling over to her dresser by the window, rethinking the idea of trying to put them away in one go as attempted to slide the bottom drawer open with her toe. 

Nadya caught him out of the corner of her eye as she stood up, and thankfully she had just tucked her two weeks worth of clothes away otherwise she would have dropped them. 

He was sitting on the roof of the adjacent house, legs dangling over the edge. They swung back and forth like a kid in a high chair waiting on a cupcake. 

In hindsight, it was quite ridiculous to believe that this man, _boy?_ , was anything other than that, but with the shadows on his face were misleading and she was running off of three hours of sleep from the previous night. 

The boy waved at her and Nadya closed her blinds faster than she knew possible. 

~~~

The next night it was less unexpected. After a two hour debate that consisted of her laying in bed running through many reasons that _no, he wasn’t going to kill her, and he is probably just a friend of Serefin’s who wanted a smoke,_ Nadya was able to fall asleep with a clear mind. Mostly. 

The mysterious boy sat in the same position, legs still swinging. Nadya subtly wondered if he was listening to music. She watched him for a moment, intrigued by what she could see in the lighter hour of the evening. 

Long black hair brushed his shoulders. It was slightly tangled at the top as if he’d subconsciously ran his fingers through it more times than what was deemed sane. 

Nadya couldn’t quite tell the color of his eyes when he looked up at her, but she saw a flicker of something there that she recognized and sent him a tentative smile back. 

~~~

They created an unspoken rhythm, a pattern of sorts that soon became routine. Nadya stole small glimpses of him in the moments before he recognized her presence. She tried to talk herself out of it, to make herself known, but she couldn’t help herself. It was an addiction, seeing him when he thought no one was watching. 

It was surprising when he pulled out an old whiteboard with stickers peeling off in the corners and wrote in small scrappy letters, _hello_

Nadya raced to her nightstand and pulled out her sketchbook, not pausing to think she might regret filling the pages with words instead of drawings, and sped back to her window. 

_Hi._

Why was her heart racing?

_Ah, so my admirer speaks._ He wrote.

_Writes actually._ Nadya responded, grateful that the heat on her cheeks wouldn’t be visible through her window and the yards between them. 

He smiled slightly. 

_And does she have a name?_

_Nadya_. She flipped to a new page, intent on asking him the same question when white flashed in the remaining light of the day. 

_Malachiasz._

_Well, definitely not what I expected._

_Then I am glad I surprise you._ She smiled at that. Kostya’s footsteps thundered as he ran up the steps. Nadya would recognize their particular rhythm anywhere. She glanced at the door before looking back at the boy, _Malachiasz._

_Talk tomorrow?_ He knew her time was up somehow. 

Nadya nodded before closing the blinds. 

~~~

She learned that his favorite color was black, somehow that wasn’t surprising, and that he loved the rain but hated the snow. They were tiny details that made him more real in her mind, despite the fact that she could throw a shoe at him and it would undoubtedly hit him right across that oddly striking face of his. 

His snark made her laugh, and the mystery of exactly _who_ he was kept her interested. Nadya figured if she really wanted to know who he was she could just ask, but then she would have never known that he liked dragonfruit or that he read in his spare time. Where was the fun in that?

“Does Serefin have a brother?” She asked Kostya one evening as they sat on the floor with his laptop in front of them, getting ready to binge The Last Jedi for the fifth time that month. 

“I don’t think so,” He said through a mouthful of Cheetos. “Why?” 

“I just figured you’d know, with that whole popularity status you hold.” 

“Just because people know who I am doesn’t make me popular.” Kostya reached to press play. 

“Says every popular person ever.” 

He continued, not bothering to get hooked on her bait. “And just because some people know me doesn’t mean I know everyone.”

Nadya only took a handful of their snacks leaned back and waited for the opening crawl. 

~~~

It was Sunday in church when she first heard his name. 

“Yeah. I’m not sure. They say he’s his cousin but with all the rumors that resurfaced in the last year, I’m not sure that’s true.” A woman was speaking from the church’s toddler room. 

“They sent him to a boarding facility on the east coast for four years, but last year I heard he got checked into a mental facility.” She continued. 

Another voice spoke up from behind the wall Nadya leaned against. “Well, we don’t know what’s true and it’s not our business.” 

They exchanged phone numbers that night and she snapped a contact photo of him before he could turn away and protest. 

~~~

“Hey.”

“Hey.” 

She hadn’t expected his voice to sound like _this_ , whatever _this_ was. Nadya sat on the shingled roof of her back patio, praying that her foster parents wouldn’t randomly decide to go outside at twelve AM to see her feet swinging above them. 

His voice echoed ever so slightly from where he sat across from her. 

There was silence over the line as if they were both contemplating what exactly to say. So much was already talked about and yet there they sat, unable to say anything more than a one word. Great conversationalists, the two of them. 

~~~

“They balance each other out. I think it’s beautiful.” Nadya had been talking about Star Wars for the last thirty minutes, going on and on about what she hoped would happen in the next movie, what she prayed wouldn’t, and Malachiasz just sat there absorbing all her information. 

“She’s the light to his darkness.” He said.

“Exactly.”

~~~

It was one in the morning but the usual heaviness that sat under her eyelids was nonexistent and her body had the urge to move. 

“Do you want to go to the park?” It was a foolish idea. Stupid more like it, and yet, something deep down in the irrational part of her brain prompted the idea and her mouth just went with it. If he accepted, if they went there _together_ it’s the closest they’d have been thus far. 

Something bubbled in Nadya’s chest. Was it anticipation? Anxiety? She couldn’t tell.

“It’s not like I sleep anyway.” His words were bitter but his smile was answer enough.

~~~

Nadya hadn’t been to a park in ages. 

They swung on the swings and jumped off, hurling themselves into the mulch pieces that scraped up her knees as a child. 

It was stupid and yet the most fun she’d had in years. 

Time passed in a haze, too slow to understand and too fast to regret. She didn’t understand how she had gotten there, to that particular place and time, next to a boy she barely knew yet felt she understood completely. 

“This is strange.” She had to say it for some reason. Put it out in the open air. It hung there, adrift a breeze that flitted between them and ruffled his hair.

“It is isn’t it?” Malachaisz responded and somehow Nadya knew he knew exactly what she meant. 

“I have a brother. Well, through the system though he is as close to a brother as I’ll ever have. We have this incredible connection, this humor and mannerisms that we just both _understand_ you know?” He looked at her and Nadya knew he didn’t but went on.

“He has been there for me for more things than I can count and yet.” She paused and took a deep breath. “It’s nothing like you.” 

_Is this rational?_ The question kept playing over and over in her mind. It seemed far too fast to be real. Nadya had never felt like this. There was a furnace in her chest and it warmed until it was almost unbearable. 

He looked at her and she could see the battle in his mind, two sides fighting against whether or not he should really say what’s on his mind. He was chewing his cuticles. It was a nervous tic she picked up on in her time watching him from across the houses. 

She took his hand an looked down at it. There were small crosshatches on his forearm, and for whatever reason Nadya wasn’t shocked. Somehow, she knew. 

He looked down at her, and _oh, his eyes were blue._

_Beautiful._

“I’m a bastard.” He was looking down at where her hand clutched his, not meeting her eyes. 

“My mother sent me away when I was little, and then again when I was older, some places that I don’t remember and others that I remember too well. I can’t say I blame her either. I was a mistake and a horrid child to deal with,” He laughed but the sound was humorless. “I guess I just expected something different.” 

She kissed one of the raised scars on his wrist before setting his hand back down and rubbing a finger over the wetness she placed there. Malachiasz just kept staring. 

“I was broken when I came back. So they sent me off again, to another place this time. One that would ‘fix me’, and I guess it did, in some ways or maybe just to their standards. I got a choice when I turned 18 and I, foolishly, came back.” There was a long stretch of silence and suddenly Nadya realized her surroundings were more yellow than before. The sun was rising. 

“I was done Nadya. I didn’t want anything anymore. I was ready.”

She inhaled sharply gripping his hand a little tighter. 

“And then I saw you.” 

Nadya didn’t know when she started crying, but it was definitely a tear that rolled down her face, one that Malachiasz gently wiped away with the back of his finger. She looked up at him once more, and the look in his eyes made her decision for her. 

She kissed him. 

She kissed him and hoped it conveyed everything that she couldn’t find words for. 

_I’m sorry._

_I’m here._

_You’re amazing and I never want anything to happen to you and even though I barely know you I feel like you’re the only person I can talk to and I’ve only known you for three months but I can’t think of what’d it be like to not see you sitting on your roof. To not see your smile. To not get the time to memorize the exact color of your eyes or feel of your hair._

Words she wasn’t ready to say yet. 

He kissed her back with more force than she’d expected. It was like she was his lifeline, the only thing keeping him adrift. She was. 

When they parted the first thing she noticed was the sun had fully risen, small sunbeams filtering through the leaves on the trees.

She leaned against him. 

A little bird landed on the pavement in front of them. Its chirps mingled with the melody of their breaths and created a song Nadya knew she’d never forget.

**Author's Note:**

> I love Malachiasz and Emily's books and I just got inspiration one day and voila, here we are. I hope you could withstand it and maybe even enjoyed it a little♥
> 
> If you liked it let me know! I may decided to extend, rework, or create something else with these two babies.


End file.
